Chapter 4 Forms of Address at the Dawn of Judeo-Spanish
In: New Perspectives on Judeo-Spanish and the Linguistic History of the Sephardic JewsSearch for other papers by Elisabeth Fernández Martín in
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Abstract
This study analyses the forms of address documented in Sephardic texts of different genres written between the 16th and 17th centuries. There is a continuity within the development of the system of address from the Peninsular Spanish state at the time of the expulsion to the resulting Judeo-Spanish varieties during the phase of dialect leveling. After the development of the koiné owing to leveling processes undergone by the Ibero-Romance varieties, Judeo-Spanish gives rise to a system of forms of address that is unique in this language and not shared by any other Ibero-Romance variety. This process is particularly discernable in the second person pronouns, whose grammaticalization had still not been completed when the Iberian Jews were forced to leave the Peninsula. Thus, the grammaticalization of the system of forms of address took independent paths in the Sephardic diaspora, which can be followed to the present day.